


The Shovel Talk

by gutsforgarters



Series: Shovel Verse [1]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Alexandria Safe-Zone, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Beth Greene Lives, F/M, Introspection, Male-Female Friendship, Older Man/Younger Woman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-24 05:16:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20353000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gutsforgarters/pseuds/gutsforgarters
Summary: I know exactly what kind of man you are.What else does she know? Does she know that she’s the second person to ever hold his hand in his adult life, the first being her sister? Does she know that, up till now, he didn’t even have the language to describe what he feels when he looks at Beth Greene?





	The Shovel Talk

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted to write this for a while, and now that I _have_, I'm going to celebrate by not touching my computer for the duration of the weekend.

No sooner has Daryl finished knocking than he gets the urge to bolt like some dumbass kid playing Ding Dong Ditch, and it’s not so much pride as it is sheer Dixon contrariness that keeps his boots welded to the porch. He gets his mind made up for him in the end, anyway, because not another five seconds have passed before the door’s swinging open on oiled hinges to reveal a bleary but welcoming Maggie Greene.

She doesn’t look as surprised to see him lurking on her porch at ass o’clock in the morning as she oughta be—’course, he gave up on trying to anticipate what her little sister was inclined to do or say at any given moment a long-ass time ago, so why should he expect Maggie to be any different? The Greene girls don’t seem all that much alike at first, in looks or disposition, but there are times when they might as well share the same brain.

“Hey,” says Maggie, all hushed the way folks get when somebody’s sleeping or convalescing in the next room. “Beth’s not up yet, but she probably will be soon. You wanna come on in and wait her out? We got coffee.”

Blood rushes into Daryl’s face, pulls his skin taut and stifling like shrink wrap. “Who says I’m here for Beth?” he grumbles, knowing damn well even as he says it that it’s an exercise in futility. Hershel Greene didn’t raise no fools.

And Maggie proves his point when she crosses her arms over her baggy gray t-shirt and fixes him with a Look that he knows real goddamn well. He’s used to seeing it on a rounder, paler face, but he’d recognize it anywhere, knows it better than his own ornery scowl in the mirror.

Anyway, Maggie doesn’t have to say anything—the Look speaks volumes for itself—and Daryl half wants to turn away and go trampling down the stairs out of sheer fucking spite, but the same contrariness that glued his feet to the porch propels him forward now, shoulders him past Maggie and walks his feet down the hall. But then the force that’s fueling him starts to wane when he crosses the threshold into the blandly appointed living room and leaves him hovering between the couch and the recliner, hands flexing for something to do.

Could try throttling himself._ That_ there notion ain’t without its attractions.

“So, coffee?” Maggie asks brightly, and Daryl turns to scowl at her where she’s standing across the hallway in the open archway to the kitchen.

Daryl shakes his head no. Don’t need no caffeine making him jitterier than he already is. “Glenn still asleep, too?” he asks. _Still_, like it’s not seven in the goddamn morning. He’s just surprised he didn’t wake Maggie up—and she had to’ve been up already, or else she wouldn’t’ve opened the door so goddamn quick.

See, there’s a reason Daryl turned up here so early. He was hoping that no one would be awake at this hour, which would’ve given him an excuse to turn tail and run before consequences could catch up with his actions.

“Yeah.” Maggie scratches absently at her scalp, tousling her fingers through the short brown hair that’s so unlike her sister’s. “He’ll probably be down here soon as he smells the coffee, though.”

“Said I didn’t want no coffee.”

“Yeah, but I _do_.” Maggie flaps her hand at the living room furniture. “G’on, sit. Swear the couch doesn’t bite.”

“Real funny,” Daryl grumbles, but Maggie doesn’t pay him no mind. She’s already drifting into the kitchen towards its promise of coffee, leaving Daryl to his own devices and unsure of what to do with himself.

Well, like Maggie said, sitting down would probably be a good start—so that’s what he does, warily easing his ass onto the couch like there might be a bomb buried under its cushions. He gives serious consideration to just crawling out a window while Maggie’s occupied in the kitchen, except, if he did that, he’d never be able to look Maggie _or_ Beth in the eye again, and the thought of fucking things up with Beth makes his stomach lurch like he just swallowed a hunk of rancid meat whole. So on the couch he stays.

Maggie comes back before Daryl can make up his mind about fleeing the scene, anyway, two mugs of fragrant coffee balanced in her hands. She claims the couch cushion beside Daryl’s and passes him one of the mugs before he can protest, then takes a huge gulp from hers. Girl should slow the fuck down before she burns a hole in her goddamn tongue.

She appears unscathed, though, when she lowers her mug and squints at Daryl over its rim. Matter fact, her eyes ain’t even watering. “G’on, now. I’ll be mighty pissed if I wind up wastin’ good coffee on your account.”

Daryl suspects that Maggie’d just commandeer his untouched mug for herself were he to refuse it, but since he ain’t got no death wish—not at present, anyway—he doesn’t make his speculation out loud. “Toldja I didn’t want the goddamn stuff,” he says, slurping at his unwanted coffee just to shut her up. Ain’t like drinking it’s a trial—he can tell from the taste that it’s the real McCoy, not just ground powder and tap water that’s been zapped in a microwave. Shit, but the folks in the Safe Zone got themselves a real cushy setup, don’t they?

Guess it’s _his_ cushy setup, too, now. Daryl’s not sure how he feels about that, other than distinctly uncomfortable. Who knew it’d take the end of the world to land _his_ redneck ass in white collar Suburgatory?

The coffee gives him a good excuse not to struggle with making conversation, anyway, and he’s nursing his fourth drink of the stuff when Maggie sets her half-empty mug down on the buffed coffee table—on the goddamn _coaster_—and says, all brisk and business like, “So. You gonna tell me what happened out there or what?”

It’s cryptic as all hell, as far as openers go, but unfortunately for Daryl and his sinking stomach, he has a good feeling he knows where she’s going with it regardless. Still, he wouldn’t be himself if he didn’t dig in his heels a little, so he scowls into his coffee—concentric rings are fluttering across the drink’s dark surface, which is how he knows his hand is shaking—and asks, “What happened out where?”

“Goddammit Daryl, you think I was born yesterday?” And before Daryl can ask what a good Christian girl like her is doing taking the Lord’s name in vain, Maggie cocks her metaphorical shotgun and points it square at his chest. “You love her, don’t you?”

Daryl’s damn lucky that he’s just set his mug down, or else he would’ve sucked coffee down the wrong pipe and choked to death. Wait, no. Maybe that makes him _un_lucky.

“The _fuck_’re you—”

“You watch your goddamn language in my house, Daryl Dixon.” Maggie’s green eyes are spitting fire just like Beth’s had when she told him that he couldn’t treat her like crap just because he was _afraid_, and fuck, _fuck_, he _cannot _think about that shit, not right now, maybe not ever. “Y’all were on your own for _weeks_, you’d barely even let _me_ near Beth after Grady, and I’ve _seen_ the way you look at her, so don’t you try playin’ dumb _now_.”

Fuck. His. Life. “I ain’t doin’ this.” Daryl pushes to his feet, eyes darting around in search of an escape hatch. Fuck, but he just might end up crawling out the window, after all. “I ain’t fuckin’—”

Cool, soft hand on his forearm, and he nearly throws her off. He nearly rounds on Maggie with bared teeth the way he would’ve not long ago, before this woman’s own sister showed him that not every touch is meant to hurt, that most in fact _aren’t_, and that_ he_ doesn’t have to hurt the people he cares about, either.

“Daryl,” says Maggie, gentle but firm, not unlike a teacher with a recalcitrant but promising student, and Daryl wants to run. Her eyes are nothing like Beth’s, except they _are_. “Sit down. Please.”

It’s the _please_ that does it. If she’d ordered him around like a grand lady with the help, he would’ve told her to fuck off and left for real. But she said _please_ in that soft drawl like her sister’s, so he sits. Scowls the whole way down, but he plants his ass and braces himself for the inevitable shovel talk.

Maggie keeps her hand on his arm, touch so light that he wouldn’t know it was there if he couldn’t see it for himself. “I’m sorry, Daryl. I started this off all wrong. I want you to know that I ain’t—that I’m not _accusing_ you of anything. I know you wouldn’t—”

Not the shovel talk, Daryl realizes, panic surging like acid in his throat. This right here’s a come-to-Jesus talk, and Daryl is patently_ not_ equipped to cope with it. He’d take death threats over_ this_ fuckery. “You don’t know shit, girl.”

“Didn’t I tell you not to talk to me like that?” The words are hard, but the hand that slides down his arm to clasp his fingers is gentle, so gentle that Daryl can’t even look at her, not that he was inclined to do so in the first place. “And don’t gimme that bullshit, either. We’ve been livin’ in each other’s pockets for years now, Daryl, and I know exactly what kind of man you are.”

Daryl’s fingers twitch in Maggie’s gentle but implacable grip. _I know exactly what kind of man you are_, she says. What else does she know? Does she know that she’s the second person to ever hold his hand in his adult life, the first being her sister? Does she know that, before Beth, he hadn’t held anyone’s hand at all since he was a little kid—his momma’s, mostly, and sometimes Merle’s when Merle deigned to tolerate such things. Does she know that, until she went and laid the words out like cards on the table, he didn’t even have the language for what he was feeling?

Daryl wants to pick strips of skin off his fingers, but he can’t, not so long as Maggie keeps holding his hand, so he settles for sucking his lower lip into his mouth and gnawing on it like a dog with a bone. Slurring the words around his bottom lip, he says, “Was a time you would’a shot my ass full’a lead jus’ for lookin’ at ’er twice.”

“Yeah, well. That would’a been my mistake, wouldn’t it?”

Daryl locks eyes with Maggie, and then he has to look away again, away from the unbearable kindness shining on her face like candlelight. The thing about finding his place with Rick and the others is that he got used to not being side eyed everywhere he went, got used to being a valued member of a functioning family unit and not just a surly, violent redneck on the fringes of society. But here in Alexandria, people look at him like he’s the man he was before the world ended, like he’s _nobody_ and _nothing_, and he didn’t even remember how much he hated that shit until it started happening again.

But _Maggie_ ain’t looking at him like that, even though she _should_.

“I didn’t.” God, he does _not_ want to do this shit. Who does she think she is, anyway, his fucking therapist? “I didn’t touch her. I swear I didn’t.”

Which is kind of the truth and kind of a lie, because he touched Beth plenty. He wrapped his burly arm around her long white neck in something that couldn’t bring itself to be a chokehold and yanked her body flush against his because he wanted to scare her, because he was so afraid of hearing the truth on her lips that he wanted to cow her into never speaking to him again. He let her nuzzle up against him while he cried like a little bitch. He steered her around with fleeting touches to her waist and the dip of her back; he carried her on _his_ back; he held her hand in front of a stranger’s grave; he carted her around a funeral home like a bride because she asked him if he thought a stranger’s respect for the dead was beautiful, and he didn’t have the words to tell her that _she_ was beautiful. That he never even _used_ words like _beautiful_, not even in the privacy of his own head, until he met_ her_.

But he didn’t touch her like _that._ He’d been too desperate to keep the one person he had left alive to spare the room for _those_ kinds of thoughts, thoughts he’d never been especially inclined to have in the first place. Once, while she was singing at the piano, he looked at the smooth nape of her neck, flushed in the candlelight, and wondered how it would feel beneath his mouth, but that was it. Most of the thoughts he was having about her were more innocent and much sappier, like wondering what it’d feel like to fall asleep together in that cushy casket, the last two people alive at the end of the world, and how, if he had to be separated from the rest of the people he called family, if he couldn’t be sure whether they were alive or dead, at least he knew that_ Beth _was alright. At least she was with_ him_, the one person he trusted to keep her safe.

The hand Maggie places on his jaw yanks him back to the present. She tilts his head so he has little choice but to look at her, and it’s weird, but he barely even flinches. It used to be one of the worst places a person could try to touch him, his face. But right now, he’s only moderately uncomfortable, and that discomfort owes more to the conversation than the touch.

“Never said you did,” Maggie tells him, and it takes him two seconds too long to remember what they were even talking about. And then when he _does _remember, he wishes he hadn’t. “But, Daryl, even if you _had_, and she was alright with bein’ touched, I wouldn’t have much say in it, would I? Beth’s a grown woman.”

Beth would probably be delighted to hear that. Before the prison fell, folks were always lumping her in with the kids, always patiently denying her requests to go on supply runs. Girl had to fight tooth and nail just to be handed a gun, and Hershel only capitulated because she pointed out that _Carl _got to carry one, and he was four years younger than her. Daryl remembers being firmly on Beth’s side during that argument, and he remembers being the one to teach her the right way to shoot so she wouldn’t get knocked on her ass by the gun’s recoil.

“I think you’ll be good for each other,” Maggie tells him, and Daryl very nearly laughs.

“Quit talkin’ like—like she—”

“Like she what? Like she feels the same way? Already told you I wasn’t born yesterday, Dixon. I’ve seen the way she looks at you, same as I’ve seen the way you look at _her_.”

And that right there. That’s almost too much. The feeling he gets when Beth sings—like he’s been running too fast and too far and the stitch in his side has spread to his entire body—flares up, only about a thousand times worse. Bad enough that he’s nursing a goddamn _crush_ like some kinda wet-behind-the-ears schoolkid. The very notion that it could be _reciprocated_—well, suffice it to say that he’s never even entertained the possibility.

Maggie’s eyes are wide and hard and unblinking, like she can somehow bend Daryl to her way of thinking just by willing it. “Before you go deciding how Beth feels, how about you give her the chance to decide for herself? She might surprise you.”

Daryl gropes for his abandoned mug of coffee and knocks it back like he’s draining a flask of whiskey. It’s lukewarm and well on its way to congealing, but he forces it down anyway.

His hands are shaking, and he doesn’t think he can blame the caffeine. Not when he’s drunk so little of it.

“I really do think you’d be good for each other,” Maggie says, relentless, and Daryl wants to scream at her to stop, to just shut the fuck up, that she doesn’t know what the fuck she’s talking about. “And if there’s anyone in this world I trust to take care of her, it’s you.”

“Girl don’t need no _takin’ care of_,” Daryl rasps, because if there’s anything that can snap him out of a mounting panic attack, it’s the knee-jerk instinct to defend Beth Greene. “She can take care’a herself jus’ fine.” If nothing else, Grady proved _that_ point.

If nothing else.

“Yeah,” Maggie says, drawing out the word like she’s thinking while she talks and needs to buy herself more time. “But it never hurts to have someone else around to watch your back, does it?”

Yeah, Daryl supposes that’s true. Just because you can take care of yourself doesn’t mean that you should _have to_ all the damn time.

And, _if nothing else_, he’s sure as hell proven that he’s good at watching out for Beth Greene. He practically fucking welded himself to her side in the long weeks on the road after Grady, hovering over her like some kinda mama bear and all but snapping his teeth at anyone who got too close. Once, Eugene jostled her on accident and made her trip, and Daryl nearly stabbed the poor fucker. Might well _have_, if not for Beth’s hand on his arm and her quiet reassurance that she was alright, that it was just a scrape. It _was _just a scrape, and Daryl was the one to clean it and bandage it, deafening himself to Beth’s protests that she could take care of it on her own.

Yeah. He’s good at watching out for Beth Greene, except for when he _isn’t_.

“I fuckin’.” Daryl worries his hands around the red coffee mug, which is a poor substitute for actually throttling his own damn self like he wanted to earlier. “I lost her, Maggie. It was my fuckin’ job to watch out for her an’ I let them sons of bitches take her, I—”

“Hey. Stop. You_ stop_ that, alright? The only ones at fault are the assholes who took her. It’s not your fault, Daryl. It’s_ not_.”

Daryl makes a choked noise, hot pressure building up behind his eyeballs, and then Maggie’s curling her arms around him, and it’s awkward because he’s still facing away from her, but she’s gentle and warm and so much like her sister in that instant that he slumps into her without meaning to. God. Goddammit. What a goddamn pussy he’s turned out to be. Merle must be rolling in his grave—or laughing up at him from Hell. 

“You brought her back,” Maggie tells him, so fiercely that she sounds almost _angry_, stale coffee breath buffeting his ear and jaw. “You watched out for her when I couldn’t, after I’d given her up for dead. If I didn’t love you already, Daryl, I’d love you for that. And Daddy would love you for it, too. He loved you anyway.”

Daryl laughs because if he doesn’t, he’ll cry. Could be that he’s crying anyway, and what is it with Greene girls and moving him to tears? “You’re kiddin’ yourself, girl. If Hershel was around to see this shit, he’d—”

“Daryl.” Maggie gives him a gentle shake. “What’d I just say? He loved you like he loved Glenn. You were like a _son_ to him. If he were here, he’d be tellin’ you to get your damn head outta your ass and do somethin’ about what you’re feelin’ before it’s too late.”

Daryl grips his mug so tight he’s surprised it doesn’t shatter. _Too late_. Maggie doesn’t mean _too late_ as in Beth falling for someone else. She means _too late_ as in there being no Beth for him to be with at all.

That’s not gonna happen, though. Not if Daryl has anything to say about it, and it turns out he has quite a goddamn _lot_ to say on the subject. He’s gonna keep her alive, not because he thinks he has any right to be with her, but because he can’t conceive of a world that doesn’t have her in it.

_Don’t you think that’s beautiful?_ she asked him, and he wanted to tell her that he never thought _anything_ was beautiful until after the world ended and a girl who was too kind for her own good taught him that the people who care about you aren’t supposed to hurt you.

He didn’t say it, though. Would’ve sounded like a damn fool if he tried. But he wanted to, wanted it so bad he felt strangled.

Maggie unravels her arms from around his neck, but not before pressing her soft, dry lips to his cheek, and Daryl’s ears flush hot. He remembers the first time Maggie Greene laid eyes on him, clear as day. She wore her disdain and mistrust like a second set of clothes, and he wanted to do something disgusting to prove her point for her, so he hocked a loogie onto her father’s pristine land and looked on with spiteful satisfaction as her mouth twisted like she’d swallowed something sour. And now that same woman is kissing his cheek and telling him that it’s alright with _her _if he puts his dirty white trash hands all over her little sister, and that it’d be alright with their dead daddy, too.

Well. Not in so many words, but the point stands.

The stairs creak like old joints, and Daryl scoots away from Maggie before Beth or Glenn can see them like this and wonder why the hell he’s getting snot all over her shoulder. He’ll consider himself lucky if they don’t notice how red his eyes must be.

“Hey, Maggie, there any coffee left in the—hi, Daryl!”

Her voice grabs him by the throat and drags his head up like fingers snarled in his hair, and when he gets a good look at her, he literally wants to curl up and die. She’s wearing a too-big shirt that probably belonged to Glenn, long legs bare, shoulders left exposed and vulnerable by the wide, slouchy collar. Her hair’s loose and frizzy, and there’s acne on her cheeks, and she’s smiling in a way Daryl hasn’t seen since before Grady, mouth stretched so wide it looks like it must hurt. She’s the prettiest thing Daryl’s ever seen in his sorry goddamn life, and now people are telling him that he’s _allowed_ to look at her.

“Hey,” Daryl grunts. Nice one, asshole. Real goddamn eloquent.

“Hey, sweetie,” says Maggie. And then, because she is an evil, evil woman who’s not about to let Daryl escape gracefully, she adds, “Daryl came over to see you. Wasn’t that nice of him?”

“Oh!” Beth’s smile stretches impossibly wider, and Daryl’s guts tangle up like writhing snakes. “I didn’t keep you waitin’ long, did I?”

_Long enough for your sister to corner me and make me talk about my goddamn feelings._ “Nah.”

Beth’s smile fades like the sun sinking behind a cloud; she’s clearly disheartened by his lack of enthusiasm, and he would kick his own ass if he could reach far enough. “Alright, well, did you wanna go for a walk or somethin’?”

If a walker could just come crashing through the window right about now, that’d be real damn convenient. “…Sure.”

And just like that, Beth’s smile blooms again. Her scars are thin and pink and faded, but even if they were still raw and red, they wouldn’t make her any less beautiful. Nothing can, and nothing ever will. “Can you give me a minute to get dressed?”

Daryl grasps at straws. “Don’t you wanna drink your coffee or somethin’?”

“Nah, it’s fine,” says Beth, and then she’s mounting the stairs two at a time before Daryl can put up another token protest.

_Fuck. _

Maggie smirks at him, and Daryl mutely flips her off.

Glenn comes drifting downstairs, then, stopping on his way to the kitchen to kiss Maggie and shoot Daryl a gummy-eyed but knowing smile, and, Jesus. Just how many people are in on this shit? Does Carol know? What about Rick? Michonne?

Daryl’s so busy trying to work out if everyone he’s ever met knew about his feelings for Beth Greene before he did that he just blinks out and stops processing his surroundings until Beth comes thundering down the stairs again, long hair brushed and tied back in a high ponytail, lean arms bared by a purple tank top.

“You ready?” she asks Daryl, and he nods even though he is so, _so_ far from ready. He’s never been_ less_ ready for anything in his entire sorry goddamn life.

He slouches after Beth onto the porch, firmly shuts the door on Maggie’s parting grin, and turns to face the music with his hands shoved wrist-deep in his pockets. Because if he doesn’t keep them in his pockets, he just might do something unforgivably stupid like reach for the girl he’s apparently in love with.

Christ, it’s like a damn romance novel.

Daryl hates romance novels.

Beth sticks her hands in her pockets, too, but Daryl can’t imagine that she’s doing it because _she’s_ trying not to reach for _him_, no matter _what_ Maggie says. Maggie’s so full of shit she oughta stink like a manure field.

The strengthening morning sunlight is trickling onto the shadowy porch, and it outlines Beth like a halo, like a penumbra, melts into her pale hair like egg yolk and teases out sparks of molten gold. Daryl feels exactly like he did when he stretched out in that casket and watched her play the piano, and it’s too fucking much. He can hardly fucking breathe, and he can’t fucking do this.

Beth tilts her head, eyebrows scrunching together. “Daryl?”

He can’t.

Her fingers bump his wrist, but they don’t clasp, don’t restrain. She’s so damn close. When’d she get so close? “Daryl. Is somethin’ the matter?”

Yeah. No. He doesn’t fucking know. “I. Nah.”

But Beth’s smile has already started to invert. “Did I—did I do somethin’?”

Fuck. He’s already fucking this up. “Nah, girl,” he says, and he hates that he sounds like he’s recovering from strep or some shit. “You didn’t do nothin’.”

She don’t look real convinced, is the thing, so Daryl bites the goddamn bullet. He yanks his hand out of his pocket and twists it around hers. He slots their fingers together and squeezes, and something inside of him that’s been knotted up in tangles since he lost her at the funeral home pulls loose like an unraveled thread.

“Oh,” she says, just like she had the last time he failed to communicate how much she means to him, face going slack and unresponsive for a heart-stopping second. But then her muscles tighten into another smile, and she squeezes back.

Daryl’s surprised that smoke ain’t coming out his ears, but he doesn’t look away. Doesn’t know that he could if he tried. “Should get goin’.”

“Yeah, but where to?”

Daryl shrugs. “Wherever ya want.” So long as she doesn’t expect him to make much in the way of conversation; his heart’s pounding so loud in his ears he can barely hear himself talk.

Beth sways in closer, so close that her eyelashes practically graze his cheek, and, shit. She trying to give him cardiac arrest or what? She says, “You just might come to regret tellin’ me that, Mr. Dixon,” and a strangled laugh escapes Daryl’s throat.

Fuck, he loves her. He loves her so goddamn much, and he owes Maggie big time.

“Nah, girl. Don’t think I will.”


End file.
